Eileen Fairbairn

Eileen Fairbairn (27 June 1893 – 9 August 1981) was a New Zealand teacher and geographer who pioneered the teaching of modern geography in New Zealand secondary schools. Her parents were Ada Pilkington and her husband, Andrew Fairbairn, a "commercial traveller" who shared with her his passion for climbing. Eileen Fairbairn, in turn, nurtured her love for mountains and mountaineering. In 1906 she walked the 53.5 km Milford track on the South Island with her family. Her passion for nature would later focus her interest in geography.

In retirement Fairbairn widely travelled and attended international geographical conferences. Her special interests were "the effects of landscape on people and the processes that formed mountains." In 1956 while in Brazil, she made a detailed study of coffee-growing lands, and in 1960 she journeyed north from Sweden into Finland to examine the effects of glaciation.

Select publications

Fairbairn, Eileen. "Geographical congress in Brazil." New Zealand Geographer 13.1 (1957): 84–84.

Literature

Banks, Eileen. "Miss Eileen Fairbairn." New Zealand Journal of Geography 72.1 (1982): 22–22. Matthews, Kay Morris. "'Imagining Home': women graduate teachers abroad 1880–1930." History of Education 32.5 (2003): 529–545.